


Maybe

by orphan_account



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Break Up, F/M, Like they're long, POV Pepper Potts, POV Second Person, Run-On Sentences
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-29
Updated: 2018-11-29
Packaged: 2019-09-02 04:24:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16779535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: "Pragmatic would, on most days, be an apt description of Pepper Potts. Her relationship with Tony had always been the exception to that. It was irresponsible, and unreasonable, and when she was in her most business-like headspace, she could barely fathom why it had happened in the first place.However, with a few glasses of riesling in her already, Pepper is far from her most business-like headspace..."During their break, Pepper thinks about her relationship with Tony, past and present.





	Maybe

**Author's Note:**

> After reading 300,000 fics, I figured I'd try making an account and actually submitting something.  
> I wrote this sometime last year, during my annual resurgence of Pepperony devotion, and skimmed a bit before posting.  
> HOWEVER: I have a horrible feeling I may have lifted some quote/idea from something I was reading at the time. Probably just my anxiety ~back at it again with the white vans~ but if you spot anything that you recognize from another Pepperony fic (beyond the normal tropey stuff I'm totally leaning into) please call me out because I hate plagiarism and I will delete this.
> 
> Please leave kudos, comments, etc if you would like to read more. Thanks xx

\--

Pepper wants to go home.

There are not many things that she can be sure of anymore, but here is one: Pepper really, really wants to go home. To the Tower. To F.R.I.D.AY. To the creature comforts and less-comfortable quirks that had come to compose her safe-space in this world.

She had told herself over and over again that those things didn’t matter. And they didn’t, she knew; she had a perfectly nice penthouse apartment complete with beautiful art, comfortable furniture, and all the newest S.I. amenities.

(When they’d been installing it, the lead engineer had referred to them as “all the newest Stark amenities” and she had pursed her lips and not pointed out that he had no idea the kinds of upgrades that existed in Tony Stark’s orbit. Especially at a time like this, when he was doubtless holed-up in his lab, allowing himself to be consumed by his work, and _hopefully-not-alcohol_ and _god-willing-not-drugs_ and _for-Pepper’s-sake-not-women_ , at least not too publicly and not too soon, because she can handle a lot and she can’t tell him how to cope, but, Jesus, most women don’t have to keep running their ex-boyfriends’ Fortune 500’s during break-ups, and trying to tamp down another PR disaster centered on a classic 2007-style Tony Stark bender might just be the final straw.)

Most days, she's too exhausted to actually wallow. The company isn't in shambles, no, but it feels constantly on the verge of disaster, and there's always something she _really should be doing_.

But tonight, right now, Pepper is curled up on her couch with a full glass of riesling -- _actually_ full, not restaurant full, or Emily Post full -- eviscerating half an avocado with a silver grapefruit spoon that her housekeeper may have actually _polished_. If her mother could only see her now, with real silver and fancy wine and a cashmere sweater wrapped securely around her feet, because she usually wore heels, and sometimes sneakers, but rarely anything that would lend to her owning cozy socks, but her feet had been cold, and her slippers were left behind in St. Petersburg, and _Tony had these warm thick wool socks that she always used to steal at night_ _and_ \--

And now she's a little bit drunk, and struggling not to cry into her midnight snack. 

Pragmatic would, on most days, be an apt description of Pepper Potts. Her relationship with Tony had always been the exception to that. It was irresponsible, and unreasonable, and when she was in her most business-like headspace, she could barely fathom why it had happened in the first place.

However, with a few glasses of riesling in her already, Pepper is far from her most business-like headspace, and she's woman enough to admit that she probably doesn't actually miss _socks_ that much. Hell, if she did, she could certainly get a few pairs of her own. No, this feels more like unspoken grief and hurt and apologies and so many fucking _fears--_

So she shuts down the hologram projecting from her coffee table, sets all her notifications to _Emergencies Only_ , and chokes out a soft curse as the fears for Tony -- health, safety, sanity, survival -- rush in as soon as her guard drops.

It all feels so terrible. Worse than anything she ever felt before she loved him, or before she acknowledged it.

And in the same moment that she wonders _how_ and _why_ she would ever put herself in such a vulnerable position, she _knows_ and she _remembers._

\--

Maybe she can do this. Maybe _they_ can.

She’s kind of been dumb in love with him for at least a little while, and it’s all come to a head and now she can _look_ and _look_ and probably _touch_ all she wants and maybe she can just be optimistic for a night or two.

And he kisses her sweet and she kisses him harder and honestly she’s inexpert and out of practice and he fucks a little too much like his fucking, but his eyes say _making love_ all over, and he is some variety of gentleman because she comes – hard and thrice – under his hands and mouth and he calls her _“so fucking pretty, Pep”_ in a gentle huff against the dip of her neck and she bites her bottom lip and squeezes her eyes shut hard and generally just _revels_.

She runs her hands through his damp hair and basks in his affection - unprecedented but so _natural_ \- and she doesn't even preen about being the exception to a decades-old rule, because this isn't like winning a reality show, it's something precious (even if that word would turn him green if she ever said it aloud).

Maybe she can have this, _just maybe_ , and not ruin everything, not blow away with the wind or give up her life’s work or kill him because he is _so stupid_ sometimes. She can have his warm, firm, gentle, work-rough fingers along the high points of her hipbones and she can go to sleep and know that he’ll be there when she wakes up.

Or maybe he won’t, but still, she has her access codes and JARVIS gives her run of the house, and she can go to him where she knows he is in the workshop and kiss the inside of his wrist and wear a sheet from his bed and have mascara sort of smeared beneath her left eyebrow and this can be okay.

\--

When Pepper arrives at the office at 8 a.m., prim and pressed as ever, her assistant hands her a copy of R&D's proposal for a new jet engine. It's heavily annotated and signed by the Chief Technology Officer. Next to his name there is a thumbprint-sized sticker of a cartoon strawberry - unprofessional but not legally problematic - which, when she tests it on a whim, turns out to be of the scratch 'n sniff variety.

It's too cute to be malicious, but it's too pointed to be thoughtless. Even as the world's leading expert on all things 'Tony Stark,' Pepper can't divine any clear meaning from the stupid thing. No obvious emotional input from him, no obvious desired outcome from her.

Maybe, she thinks, it's just a little "Hello." A tiny adhesive: "Remember? I do." Maybe she can keep it - just tuck it into her outdated datebook where no one will ever see it.

So she nudges her manicured nail under the sticker's edge. Peels it up slowly. Winces, when it tears jaggedly in her grasp.

\--


End file.
